Friday Homestead Dispatch
Southern New Mexico, Pt. 1
As many of you know, I missed last weekend’s music festivities due to some non-covid-bronchial-fever-mystery event. It came on sometime Wednesday night (the 13th) so I slept through most of Thursday hoping I’d be better for the weekend. Friday morning, after barely managing to post my Dispatch, I slept the rest of the morning. By noon or so I knew it wasn’t going away quickly so I texted Kevin and Karl to inform them that I was out of the picture. I was looking forward to the TKMA event but couldn’t be helped. Many thanks to Les Merrihew for stepping up and helping out by both playing drums for two bands and supplying the drum kit.
The other part of the story is that a couple months ago, Connie and I reserved an Airbnb in Pinos Altos, New Mexico for the week of the 18th through today for some much needed down time and a big hit of the natural world. Fortunately, I actually started feeling a bit better Sunday so after a bucket of medication I slept through the day. By evening the fog seemed to be lifting so off we went Monday morning.
We arrived at our lodging around 4 or so and got settled into the perfect size space for the two of us. And breathing the mountain air at 7000 feet beats the Ft. Lowell coal-rollers any ol’ day.
We decided just to eat locally (it’s a 15 or so minute drive into Silver City) so we headed over to the Buckhorn Saloon a couple blocks away for a bowl of green chili. I think that may have kicked most of whatever bug I had to the curb.
On Tuesday we drove the stunning drive from Pino Altos up highway 15 to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. According to the National Park Service website (enjoy National Parks for at least two more months, folks) For thousands of years, groups of nomads used the caves above Cliff Dweller Creek as temporary shelter. In the late 1200s, people of the agricultural Mogollon (Southern Ancestral Pueblo) culture made it a home. They built rooms, crafted pottery and raised children in the cliff dwellings for one or two generations. By approximately 1300, the Mogollon had moved on, leaving the walls behind.
Before we reached the Dwellings, we stumbled across the Forks Campground located on the West Fork of the Gila River. The cliffs on the opposite side of the running river, along with perfect weather, made for the ideal lunch stop.
Once in the parking lot for the Cliff Dwellings, which was the end of the line for highway 15, we talked to a ranger for a bit about the history of the place, resulting in my Honorary Archeology Degree. There’s a link above for more info on the dwellings. The trail to reach them was a mile-long loop with a slight climb in elevation in a short period to reach them. Thank you Medicare for the gym membership which got me to the top without passing out.
To cap the perfectly fine day, after a nap of course, we drove to Tucson friend Dave Hawkins’ Silver City home for a glass of wine, then walked downtown to the Little Toad Creek Brewery for some much needed bar food.
This is not my ‘normal’ Friday Dispatch but it’s all I could muster this week. There are a few barrels of strange things going on in the world to write about so you’ll be hearing from me soon enough. Stay calm, cool, and collect your things…
And now…
Love the post this morning, Gary. We all need some healing.
Thank you for this! I, too, needed a break.